Environmental sustainability of bark valorisation into biofoam and syngas

Remarkable environmental benefits were obtained in terms of climate change, fossil fuels depletion as well as in some toxicity related impact categories in comparison with the petroleum based foams, mainly based on the use of an abundant renewable source as raw material to produce the foams. Improvement actions should look at the reduction (or even recovery) of chemicals used, the control of diffuse emissions (e.g. pentane from evaporation unit and CHP unit) as well as the installation of a cogeneration unit to produce the electricity requirements to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.